“Did you see that?” Durso asks, laughing. “Was it godlike? Olympian? Tell me the truth. It’s like I’m a gyroscope! Spin me around and I never fall. Albert Einstein couldn’t compute the physics of these shots. Nobody wants any part of me. It’s pure pain.”

“I’m like Jackson Pollock, submerged in my own creation,” Durso boasts loudly.

“Sounds like a rock star who cleans pools,” cracks a spectator.

“It’s like I’m a painter on a planet of blind people,” says Durso as he dips the end of a kasha knish in mustard. “My talent is almost like a curse. I achieved greatness in something that the world can’t appreciate. The fact that I got supergreat just adds to the pathos. If I’m playing a guy who I know is unworthy, where’s my motivation? If I play hard, I’m acknowledging that he’s worthy for me to play against, which I can’t do. Does McEnroe play pickup games in the park? Did Ali have street fights?”

Durso is shirtless, his torso bronzed. Some Russian girls in tight silk dresses eye him from the next table. He winks at them. They blush.

“While guys are just struggling to make points,” he continues, “I’m way beyond that. I know I’m going to make the points. It’s how I make them. It’s a whole new level of being. What makes what I do trivial is the fact that handball is not in the American consciousness. That makes me look trivial. No matter how good I get, I can’t get good enough to overcome the fact that the sport is not well known. I guess I must have the need to be loved.”

Back at the courts, Durso stands in front of the handball doyens and stretches out his arms.

“Who’s the best who ever lived?” he asks. “Who towers over this game like the Colossus of Rhodes?”